{"id":104974,"date":"2024-10-13T07:11:35","date_gmt":"2024-10-13T12:11:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/?p=104974"},"modified":"2024-10-13T07:11:35","modified_gmt":"2024-10-13T12:11:35","slug":"104974","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/?p=104974","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"

U.S. Soldier Plotted to Ambush His Fellow Soldiers \u2014 Yes, He Believes Just What You Think<\/a><\/p>\n

Maybe it was just a play for sympathy or an attempt to prove that he was remorseful, but when former U.S. Army Private Cole Bridges appeared in court to be sentenced for plotting to aid Islamic State jihadis in carrying out massacres in the United States, as well as ambushing and murdering his fellow soldiers, he actually requested the maximum 40-year sentence. Bridges appears to have realized the disastrous course his life has taken, but will military and intelligence officials absorb the lessons of his case? Not a chance.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Fox News\u00a0<\/span>reported<\/span><\/a>\u00a0Saturday that Bridges got a sentence of fourteen years, rather than forty, despite telling Judge Lewis J. Liman: “Honestly, I do believe that I deserve the maximum sentence. I know what I did was wrong.” He added that he would feel “regret for as long as I live.”<\/span><\/p>\n

Back in September 2019, Bridges joined the Army; he became a cavalry scout for the Third Infantry Division in Fort Stewart, Georgia. However, the seeds of his personal disaster had already been planted: Fox notes that \u201cabout a year before he joined the Army, Bridges began researching and consuming online propaganda promoting jihadists and their violent ideology, and began to express his support for ISIS and jihad on social media.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

After he had been in the army for roughly a year, he \u201cbegan communicating with an FBI online covert employee (OCE), who was posing as an ISIS supporter in contact with ISIS fighters in the Middle East.\u201d He \u201cexpressed his frustration with the U.S. military and his desire to aid ISIS.\u201d Nor did he just talk: \u201cBridges provided training and guidance to purported ISIS fighters who were planning attacks, including advice about potential targets in New York City. He also provided the OCE with portions of a U.S. Army training manual and guidance about military combat tactics, with the understanding that the materials would be used by ISIS in future attack planning.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

That wasn\u2019t all. Around Dec. 2020, according to the Justice Department, Bridges\u00a0<\/span>gave<\/span><\/a>\u00a0his ISIS contact \u201cinstructions for the purported ISIS fighters on how to attack U.S. forces in the Middle East.\u201d He \u201cdiagrammed specific military maneuvers intended to help ISIS fighters maximize the lethality of attacks on U.S. troops.\u201d He also \u201cprovided advice about the best way to fortify an ISIS encampment to repel an attack by U.S. Special Forces, including by wiring certain buildings with explosives to kill the U.S. troops.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Warming to his role, Bridge made a video of himself, which he passed on to his contact, in which he wears army body armor while \u201cstanding in front of a flag often used by ISIS fighters and making a gesture symbolic of support for ISIS.\u201d He also sent along \u201ca propaganda speech in support of the anticipated ambush by ISIS on U.S. troops.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

It\u2019s good that he got caught, but the most important question is the one no one is asking: what got into this kid? The reason why no one is asking this question is that there are two answers, both of which involve hard truths that no one wants to hear. The first and most obvious answer is that Bridges went from U.S. soldier to traitor because of Islam.<\/strong> Pointing it out will get you swift charges of \u201cIslamophobia,\u201d which is why no one dares discuss such matters, but Islamic theology includes the concept of the\u00a0<\/span>umma<\/span><\/em>, the supranational community of believers to whom every Muslim theoretically owes an allegiance that is above all other allegiances except to Allah himself.<\/span><\/p>\n

Thus when Cole Bridges became a Muslim, he was likely told that his identity as an American came second to his identity as a Muslim.<\/strong> That is not necessarily problematic; innumerable Christians think the same thing about Christianity. But he was also probably informed that America, by attacking Muslims in Afghanistan and Iraq, and by supporting Israel, had become an enemy of Islam, such that it was his duty as a Muslim to wage jihad against it.<\/span><\/p>\n

The second answer to the question of what got into Cole Bridges is just as unwelcome: America got into him. Our leftist-dominated, rootless, materialistic, narcissistic, self-obsessed, reality-denying society is leading increasing numbers of young people to think that something, anything, that provides some standards and expectations will be better.<\/span><\/p>\n

With the churches all too often hanging up Pride flags and aping the secular culture, many are finding Islam\u2019s absolute unwillingness to compromise with the spirit of the age refreshing.<\/strong> The only problem is that part of Islam\u2019s rejection of the values of our society is an aggressive and supremacist impulse that leads many believers to want to do violence to unbelievers in order to compel them to convert or submit as inferiors to Islamic hegemony. If our culture had any sane values, this might not appear so attractive. But\u2026well, you know that story.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

In any case, the lessons of Cole Bridges\u2019 case will not be learned. Despite the large numbers of\u00a0<\/span>converts<\/span><\/a>\u00a0to Islam who turn to terrorism, authorities have never shown any interest in this phenomenon or made any effort to counter it. This will only ensure that there will be many more young men like Cole James Bridges.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

U.S. Soldier Plotted to Ambush His Fellow Soldiers \u2014 Yes, He Believes Just What You Think Maybe it was just a play for sympathy or an attempt to prove that he was remorseful, but when former U.S. Army Private Cole Bridges appeared in court to be sentenced for plotting to aid Islamic State jihadis in … Continue reading “”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[49,4,34],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-104974","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-espionage","category-military","category-moslems-jihadis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104974","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=104974"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104974\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":104982,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104974\/revisions\/104982"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=104974"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=104974"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=104974"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}